


Reading "Growing Up"

by yourlibrarian



Series: Reading Fan Vids [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Commentary, Fanvids, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6703897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some thoughts about how the Winchesters, work is virtually inseparable from family life –- giving new meaning to the term "family business."  The work is what has made them who they are, and also who they are becoming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading "Growing Up"

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Growing Up](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/193849) by sweetestdrain. 



> Originally posted on January 2, 2008

I have to rec a vid that thrilled me. Growing Up by sweetestdrain is, I think, a riveting look at the role of hunting in Sam and Dean's lives and the toll it has taken on them from their early days to the developments Dean went through in S2 and Sam is undergoing in S3. I've seen few vids out there that look at the action side of SPN, but this isn't so much that as a look at how work can define and alter a person. Of course in the case of the Winchesters, work is virtually inseparable from family life –- giving new meaning to the term "family business." The work is what has made them who they are, and also who they are becoming. 

The way the vid opens takes two major symbols and, it seems to me, makes a statement right there about the nature of family and work for them. I liked the way the Impala moves from day (albeit a grey one) into night, and then John's journal is dropped in with a bang. I think that describes what happened to their family right there, and how they ended up as hunters.

The vid also presents some wonderful juxtapositions. For example, early on in a montage of work-oriented scenes (map reading, library research, crime scene visits) we see Dean lighting a match and dropping it into a grave. Near the end of the vid we see Sam doing the same, and later still, both doing the salt and burn from the S3 opener. I think that says something about the roads they've been traveling in terms of their orientation to the job, and Dean leading Sam back in to where they're now on the same page.

And that's a thread that leads through the first part of the vid, seen clearly when Dean hands Sam the gun and he tucks it into his waistband. This act of acceptance by him is followed by several shots of doubled actions: Dean sits next to Sam on the bed as he explains the world they actually live in. This merges into the two looking at things together as adults, pointing guns together; driving together; digging up a grave together; on a road together.

We hear the "growing up" line as young Dean fails to shoot the Shtriga, and then young Sam looking at the gun beneath Dean's pillow. I think that says some interesting things about how differently each saw hunting at the time. It's a moment of truth for each, a loss of innocence. Technically Dean's was probably lost when Mary died, but his failure to take his duty seriously enough in "Something Wicked" made hunting more than just something "cool" his Dad did. It made it a personal responsibility in the same way Mary's death was for John, fueled by a sense of guilt. For Sam, it was a realization that his life would never be the same, that what he wanted from it would never come from John but would have to come from his own efforts. It's nice to see the scene where Dean tosses him the keys for the first time soon after he gives Dean the amulet. It shows, in both cases, a gift for/from John being passed on to the sibling. At the same time, getting the keys to a car is both a rite of adolescent passage that fits the "growing up" line, and yet means something fairly different in the Winchester context.

"Looking for a place to live" is followed by a scene in a motel, but then also the scene where Dean wants Sam to return to the family in "Shadows." It's a nice comment on what home means for a team that's never had any other definition than having home in one another's presence (usually, as in the next clip, in the Impala).

When the "my ghosts like to travel" lines kick in we get a look at various different supernatural beings and cases until we settle on Meg. I liked this interpretation of the "travel" line -- as a journey both have taken in understanding the consequences of what it is they do. For example we see her dying, then Dean shooting her brother, both of which we know weigh on him. That this is followed by scenes with John exemplifies what Dean said in Devil's Trap, that he will do anything for his family without hesitation.

What comes next is probably my favorite set of clips in the vid, which are set to the following:

three dot, a trinity, a way to map the universe,  
three dot  
four dot, is what will make a square, a bed to build on, it's all there,  
four dot

Right after scenes of the Winchester reunion over the line "the trinity a way to map the universe" we see John cutting off a vamp's head sending droplets of blood scattering. Then Dean puts together the blood patterns in Shadows. This is intercut with scenes of Mary's (and the original family's) death so that the pattern becomes something that is passed down as well as followed.

This brings us back to the "traveled" lines as we see both the personal loss (of John, nearly of Dean) and the revelations for Dean in Bloodlust. This is another wonderful mirroring bit as Gordon appears again, having been the source of discovery for both Dean and Sam over the course of a year. In S2, Gordon causes Dean to realize some monsters can be spared and in S3, he makes Sam realize some humans are too dangerous to show mercy to. This theme of mercy is carried on in the moments from "Roadkill" and then offset (over the "growing up" lines) in the clips from "Croatoan" and "Heart." The idea of mercy/ruthlessness is then explicitly juxtaposed in the scenes from AHBL1 and 2, finished off by the clip where we see Sam light the bones, as mentioned earlier.

What's also juxtaposed there is the idea of responsibility. First we see Dean locking Sam away in Croatoan, and taking the gun from his hand in Heart, only to return it and (in a Winchesterly way) allow Sam to grow up.

We then see several scenes from S3 where Sam actively takes on the role of killer which he previously shrank from. I liked how the YED's death represents the lines "in transition once again, such a struggle getting through these changes" since the ending of the family's lifelong quest was both a major marker, and yet hardly provided a moment of celebration given the costs to them all. We close by seeing Sam kill Gordon, and then Dean look back at the house in Bloodlust before they drive off –- Sam and Dean now meeting in the middle as adults where they were once divided as boys.

There are wonderful small details as well. For example, just after we see young Sam toss the journal onto the night table, there is a cut to the weapons in the trunk and a brief shot of the curved blade that (so far as I can recall) we've never seen Sam actually use, but is linked to him both in the S1 publicity shots as well as his brief packing of it in the Pilot. Also, after Dean's kill of the demon siblings the image goes negative, just as it does after Sam kills the demon couple in "Sin City." All in all, a great use of the song to interpret their paths.


End file.
